


A List of Harry Potter's Faults

by November Snowflake (novembersnow)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-04 05:39:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novembersnow/pseuds/November%20Snowflake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco doesn't care for messy things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A List of Harry Potter's Faults

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the June 2003 Rescribo Harry Potter Remix, based on "A List of Draco Malfoy's Faults" by Trin. Some dialogue incorporated from the original fic.

1\. _Hideous disfigurement_

And maybe that's a little harsh, but Draco doesn't think so. The famous scar may be what's endeared Potter to millions in the wizarding world, but Draco recognizes it for what it is: a freakish imperfection, a Gryffindor-red gouge that mars a smooth forehead and points to nothing in particular except a run of bad luck and a perhaps unfortunate encounter with a wizard of great power but perhaps not enough discretion.

Draco knows all about discretion.

2\. _Unruly hair_

It might be a blessing if the hideous disfigurement were covered, but not in such a way as it is. Potter's hair manages to offend every single one of Draco's sensibilities, even though he can't completely articulate what these are. It's messy and disordered and perpetually looks as if he (or someone) has run his hands through it. Which he probably has.

It makes Draco's fingers itch.

Draco's mirror assures him daily that he is smartly turned out, clothing expensive and impeccable, blond hair slick to complement the aristocratic angularity of his bone structure. He flashes a smile composed of small, sharp teeth.

"Ooh, aren't you the handsome one?" coos the mirror.

3\. _Ugly glasses_

Draco knows he's attractive. That is one of many things that have never been in doubt. He received his first kiss from Pansy Parkinson at age six after he deigned to let her drape a chain of daisies atop his head. She gave him a loud, smacking kiss and pronounced the flowers to be "as pretty as you, Draco," whereupon he knocked the garland off his head and ground the blossoms beneath his heel. Pansy went home in tears, but it wasn't enough to stop her kissing him in subsequent years.

More recently he found himself the object of someone's attention at his parents' elegant Midsummer Gala at the Manor. A young man in wire-framed glasses caught Draco's eye across the room and inclined his wineglass in subtle toast. Draco had raised a cool eyebrow at him, raking his gaze along the man's expertly tailored dress robes, the dragonhide shoes buffed to a high sheen, the smooth hair, the spectacles that caught the low party lights. His skin was unmarred, his mouth quirked in a low smile of definite interest. Draco casually set his drink aside and slipped out of the Manor and into the topiary. Minutes later, the other man followed.

When he told Draco his name was Gay, it was all Draco could do not to laugh because, really, could it be any more obvious, any neater a package? He'd never kissed a boy before, but sometimes wondered if he'd like to. As Gay stood before him, tall and cool in the moonlight, he wondered again. The lenses in his glasses winked in reflection of the distant Manor lights, and Draco thought of cheap, badly mended black frames perched in front of furious green eyes, like a barrier before the killing curse. Feeling reckless, he pinched the temple of Gay's spectacles and drew them off his face as the other man leaned closer. But when Draco stood confronted with heated brown eyes, he shoved Gay's glasses at him and swept back to the Manor.

4\. _Untidy clothes_

While Lucius Malfoy would never preach something so distinctly Muggle as "the clothes make the man," the sentiment is the same, and Draco has been aware of it from his earliest days, surrounded as he has been by the wealthiest, most elegant wizards and witches of the age. He knows the importance of one's appearance, the absolute necessity of looking one's best.

This lesson apparently has been lost on Harry Potter.

Returning to Hogwarts for the next term, Draco can't help but contrast Potter's appearance with that of the wizards he associated with all summer. His clothing perpetually seems too large for his frame, his robes wrinkled, his tie askew. Potter reaches to push his glasses up his nose, and Draco notices that Potter's tie is not simply askew—it is undone, his collar lying open to the V of his vest. Draco is horrified by the display. That, of course, is the only reason he stares.

5\. _Plebeian accent_

It's Potter's gesticulations that draw Draco's attention to the fact that he is speaking, recounting in quick, low-pitched tones some improbable tale of snogging a girl in a Muggle garden. Potter's words tumble on top of one another in an unpleasant combination of Surrey and vulgar eagerness that raises Draco's hackles to the point where he finds himself gliding closer. Potter tugs at the collar of his shirt to give Weasley a better indication of where the girl supposedly had planted a hickey, and Draco scowls as he notes that Potter's collar remains askew, baring his throat, his Adam's apple bobbing with the rush of his words.

"So you kissed her?" Weasley asks, goggling. "Really? And Dudley just burst in? Bloody hell! That's bloody hardcore! So you're going out with this Danii girl now?"

"Not really. I mean, it was just a summer fling sort of thing." Potter grins, and the impulse is too strong for Draco to resist.

"That became a flung so fast?" he drawls, sliding smoothly into the conversation and permitting only a small, tight smirk at the way Weasley contorts his face into a grimace of annoyance. Beyond vulgar, that one. He narrows his attention on Potter, keenly aware of his own starched collar, smooth hair, and impeccable skin, untouched by anything so crass as a glaring scar or a hickey. "So what happened?" he asks, only narrowly suppressing the urge to laugh in Potter's face. "The deaf-mute-blind girl snogged you and was so repulsed that she flung herself out of her wheelchair and into the sea?"

"No, actually," Potter says. "I told her there was someone else at Hogwarts."

Draco stares, but Potter only beams at him, eyes twinkling behind his glasses. After a few nonplussed moments, Draco turns and stalks away.

Behind him he can hear Weasley pelting Potter with questions, but all Draco can think is that this may turn out to be even messier than he'd anticipated.


End file.
